In recent years, a multi-screen display system, a curved face display, a wide view angle display, a head mount display, or the like has gone into actual use for performing image display with enhanced reality.
Herein, in order to perform image display with enhanced reality using the displays as described above, a three-dimensional virtual space is illustratively constructed by a computer graphics. Whereas, the following display procedure is also carried out. By using a large number of video cameras, or mounting a wide-angle lens on a video camera, a wide range of space is photographed. The photographed image is then transformed to the flat or curved image adaptable to the multi-screen display, the head mount display, or the like for display.
Incidentally, when the moving image display with enhanced reality is performed by using the multi-screen display, the wide-angle display, or the like in this manner, an arithmetic operation is required to be performed using a high-speed computer device in order to construct a three-dimensional virtual space with a computer graphics. This requires excessive cost and time, and results in an image with less reality and sense of realness as compared with a real picture image.
Further, using a real picture image requires that the overall range of a space to be presented be photographed closely throughout the space in order to present a wide range of space. For this reason, a hefty image pick-up apparatus including a large number of video cameras, a video camera mounting a special lens, and the like become necessary, incurring a heavy cost.
Further, when the image contents photographed by a general video camera have been already present, unless the same scene as the image contents is photographed again by a plurality of video cameras, it is impossible to present a wide range of image.
Under such circumstances, it is therefore an object of this invention to provide an image processing apparatus capable of presenting a wide view angle image with ease without using a plurality of vide cameras, or a video camera using a special lens, and an image signal generation method, an information recording medium, and an image processing program therefor.